Page:Science and medieval thought. The Harveian oration delivered before the Royal College of Physicians, October 18, 1900 (IA sciencemedievalt00allbrich).pdf/46

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the cloisters of the Mathurins to the faubourg of St Denis; and, in respect of our theme of this day, we shall see that even Harvey was embarrassed by certain aspects of it.

For, to resume, closcly allied to the argument concerning universals was that concerning "form and matter." Whether the terms used were "form and matter," force or energy or "pneuma" and matter, "soul or life " and "body," "determinative essence and determinate subsistence," "male principle and female element," "archæus and body," the potter and the clay of the potter; or whether again they were "type and individual," "cause and effect," "law and nature," "becoming and being," or even the thought and extension" of Descartes, the riddle lay in the contrast of the static and dynamic aspects of things; in the incessant formation of variable and transitory individuals in the eternal ocean of existence²."

"Spiritus intus alit, totamque infusa per artus Meus agitat molem, et magno corpore miscet."

1 M. Charles Jourdain thus describes the procession of Rector, doctors and disciples of the University of Paris at the beginning of the fourteenth century. At the end of this century its decay began. 2 For Aristotle the principle of individuation was matter and form (vid. note, p. 33); for Averroes it was form; for